Sask. sets daily record with 735 new COVID-19 cases

Saskatchewan set a new record for daily COVID-19 cases, reporting 735 new cases on Friday.

The previous daily record of 650 was set on Oct. 7, 2021.

Of those new cases, 527 are unvaccinated, five are partially vaccinated and 203 are fully vaccinated.

The cases are located in the Far North West (nine), North West (19), North Central (23), North East (seven), Saskatoon (286), Central West (21), Central East (50), Regina (180), South West (four), South Central (47) and South East (58) zones. An additional 31 new cases are pending location information.

There are now 2,844 cases considered active.

“We can continue to expect higher case numbers due to the contagiousness of the Omicron variant, but the more important numbers we are tracking are hospitalizations and ICU admissions,” Premier Scott Moe said, in a statement released following the case update.

“Today, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations have remained the same and ICU admissions continued to decline, now at 12. Both hospitalizations and ICU admissions are at their lowest levels since August.”

A total of 79 people are in hospital related to COVID-19, including 12 patients in intensive care. Of those patients, 48, or 60.8 per cent, were not fully vaccinated.

Saskatchewan has identified 1,472 Omicron variant cases – up 300 cases from Thursday. Of those cases, 117 are confirmed while 1,355 are probable.

No new deaths were reported Friday.

The seven-day average of daily new cases is 333, or 27.6 per 100,000 population.

Health care workers have administered 1,800,002 doses of COVID-19 vaccines – up 1,644 doses from Thursday. There are 857,368 fully vaccinated residents.